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Literary analysis for the great gatsby
Selfish motivations in the great gatsby
Selfish motivations in the great gatsby
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Every great story has someone or something that is a driving force for the plot. The Great Gatsby by F, Scott Fitzgerald is no different in this regard. The entire story is narrated from Nick Carraway’s point of view and he is the driving force of the plot. Nick Carraway drives the plot along because of the actions he does and the actions he does not do. Nick’s actions drive the plot of The Great Gatsby immensely. Nick’s first important action is just simply moving to New York to pursue the bond business (Fitzgerald 5). Without this initial action the story that unfolds would never have taken place. Picking the house right next to Gatsby was also an important choice Nick made (Fitzgerald 7). While it may be argued that Gatsby set it up Nick goes attends a small party with Tom, his mistress ,and a couple of there friends, at said party he witnesses Tom hit his mistress but does nothing about it (Fitzgerald 41). Nick not responding to this could show that he is not a man for confrontation. Nick is not a man to stand up for someone else, especially against someone such as Tom. This is prevalent throughout the book. For example, in the later chapter seven, Tom, Daisy, Jordan, Jay, and Nick are all in a hotel room together when Tom and Jay get into a sort of altercation (Fitzgerald 137-144). In this it is shown again that Nick won’t stand up to Tom no matter how wrong Tom may be. Nick lets Tom be hypocritical by not mentioning a word about Tom’s affair to Jay. If Jay were to know about the affair he would have a much better argument instead of getting demolished and belittled by Tom’s verbal assault. Not only is Nick not standing up against Tom, he is also not standing up for his friend, Gatsby. Nick not taking action in these two cases helps drive the plot because it allows Tom to walk all over Gatsby and stop him from taking Daisy away. This eventually leads to the death of myrtle and Gatsby's death (FitzGerald 147,
...has led him to the position he is now in. For instance, there was an opportunity that daisy went back to Gatsby, if she knew Tom was cheating on her. Also, if he told the police the truth, they could have come to Gatsby before the husband did which may have prevented Gatsby’s death. Later on in his life, if Nick see’s something wrong he should speak up no matter the consequences are or else he can end up losing great friends just like he lost Gatsby.
A soft breeze lifts off the Sound and brushes Nick Carraway’s face as he emerges from the shadows into the moonlight. His eyes first gaze across the bay to the house of Tom and Daisy where Nick sees past the walls to people who “...smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back to their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together...” (Fitzgerald: 187- 188). Nick’s head then turns to his side where he views Gatsby’ s mansion. His heart swells for the man who was unable to let go of the past, and move toward his future. With the two houses juxtaposed in his mind’s eye, Nick ponders his experiences in the East, and enters the car to take him home with a new perspective on life. Nick’s maturity becomes evident as his perspective of society becomes more realistic as a result of his observing the consequences which occur in unhealthy relationships.
His duplicity continues, as he meets Tom’s mistress, and later arranges Daisy and Gatsby’s meeting, even going as far as to say “don’t bring Tom” (85). These are clear deceptions and violations of trust, which both reveal that Nick is not the honest and forthright man he wants the reader to believe his is; on the contrary, in many ways he is the opposite of honest and forthright. However, Nick’s most clearly professed lie is in protection of Daisy, when Tom insists that Gatsby had killed Myrtle, and Nick remains silent, forgoing telling Tom about the “one unutterable fact,” - that it had not been Gatsby who was driving the car when it had hit Myrtle, but Daisy - in favor of protecting Daisy (178). This obvious deception shows that despite Nick’s conviction in his honest character he does not neglect others, who depend on him. Once again, Nick mischaracterizes his traits and even fails to recognize his deceptions and violations of trust as being dishonest, failing to evaluate his own
...d Nick of being dishonest I agreed with her. In the beginning I thought Nick would be the most honest character, but he wasn’t. I think the environment and people around Nick changed him. Especially when everybody in the book was being dishonest (Jordan by cheating at golf, Tom by having an affair with Myrtle) which influenced Nick. Nick portrays how not only the city but the enviroment you live in can change you. It is hard to relate to stories that happened in the earlier days, because it is like two different worlds. Fitzgerald uses societal developments of the 1920’s to build the story, for example Gatsby’s automobile and his stories from the past. In conclusion Nicks change of character and development is displayed throughout the Great Gatsby. Nicks opinion of Gatsby changes as well, showing how Nick Carraway is maturing, and he’s leaving behind his innocence.
Even though he had some thought that the meeting would provoke harmful tensions between Tom, Daisy, and Gatsby, he went along with it anyways, further demonstrating his own innate lack of reservation. Ultimately, Nick is an unreliable narrator who overlooks Gatsby’s lies because of his biased judgment of him. Nick portrays Gatsby as a generous and charismatic figure while in reality, he is a duplicative and obsessed man entangled in illegal business who is determined on an unattainable goal. It is highly ironic that Nick judges others for their lack of morality and honesty; his own character is plagued by lies as he abets Gatsby in many of his schemes.
This immediately marks Nick as being dishonest. Nick also admits to lying about his heritage, claiming “(his) family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this Middle Western city for three generations. The Carraways are something of a clan, and we have a tradition that we’re descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch” but later admitting that his family is not noble “my grandfather’s brother… sent a substitute to the Civil War”, nor prominent “and (he) starts the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on to-day.” Nick also begins the book by trying to deceive his readers into believing “Gatsby… represented everything for which I had an unaffected scorn,” (Fitzgerald 2), when in reality he liked “the consoling proximity of millionaires” and admires their lifestyle. Although Gatsby’s parties are the very things he hates, he never fails to attend and even pursues an interest in the host of them. Nick’s inconsistencies in his opinions clearly begin to alter him as a person and the way he tells the story over
To start off, Nick Carraway is responsible for the death of Gatsby. During the harmonious relationship with Jordan Baker, Nick displays tolerance of Jordan Baker’s dishonest behavior and considers her dishonesty as incurable. Nick expresses his thought to Jordan by saying, “It made no difference to me. Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeply ” (58). However, Nick’s forbearance of woman’s dishonesty develops, and his tolerance of dishonesty reaches an apex. Nick soon covers and hides the origin truth of Myrtle Wilson’s death, and he lets Gatsby assume the responsibility of Myrtle’s death. The next day, Nick sees the abandoned corpse of Jay Gatsby at his pool. After the death of Jay, Nick hides the secret of Myrtle’s death from Tom, but displays his disappointment toward Tom. If Nick had told anyone that Daisy was driving the car, George would not have shot Gatsby. Nick Carraway’s wrong decision that was not to tell anyone Daisy ran over Myrtle has led the Gatsby’s death. Moreover, Carraway’s wide tolerance has not prevented the death, but caused it. He is respo...
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is about Nick Caraway, a man who moved into New York in West Egg. He soon finds out that his house borders a mansion of a wealthy man, named Jay Gatsby, who is in love with Nick’s cousin Daisy Buchannan. Nick describes his past experiences with Gatsby. He is an unreliable first person narrator, for he is extremely subjective being biased towards Gatsby and he is deceptive, with his lying and past actions. His evaluation of Gatsby is not entirely just, due to his close friendship with Gatsby.
Nick Carraway is the only character worth knowing in The Great Gatsby. He is living in East Egg with the rich and powerful people. He is on the guest lists to all of their parties and yet he is the person most worthy of attending such parties because he is well bread and his family is certainly not poor. “Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.” (Ch1, P1). These words were taught to Nick by his father showing the qualities that a man with goals and values would have in a place where goals and values was no existent. His Judgmental eye for character and guts of using them when desired makes him more interesting. He has a greatest fear that he will be all alone by himself.
To begin with, after the party from the city returns to Tom’s home, Jordan invites him inside, but he responds, “‘No, thanks…’ I’d be damned if I’s go in; I’d had enough of all of them for one day, and suddenly that included Jordan too” (142). By refusing to enter Tom’s house, he symbolically declines the acceptance of the upper class; something he, Gatsby, and Myrtle all avidly desired and worked towards up to this point. Rather than value those material characteristics that had appealed to him before, he chooses his moral principles instead. His relationship with Jordan perfectly symbolizes his primary choice . Later on, after Gatsby’s death, Nick “found himself on Gatsby’s side, and alone…it grew upon me that I was responsible [for Gatsby’s funeral], because… [Gatsby deserved] that intense personal interest to which every one has some vague right at the end” (164). Once again, Nick favors his personal beliefs over following societal expectations. He stands by the mysterious figure of Gatsby, who possessed “an extraordinary gift for hope”(2) that Nick admired, while everyone else keeps a safe distance and watches, as onlookers in a zoo does to the animals. By admitting his part in the events that took place, primarily Gatsby’s downfall, Nick shows he is not the same careless person as Tom and Daisy who leave their mistakes for others to fix . Whether Nick’s belief that everyone should have a living person stand by h im/her after death is a universal truth or not, he follows his heart rather than the crowd. Finally, before he leaves to the Midwest, Nick “wanted to leave things in order and not just trust that obliging and indifferent sea to sweep my refuse away” (177). Particularly, Nick wanted to end his relationship with Jordan, supporting his original belief that a person should only have one
At the end of the book, it is revealed that all of Tom, Daisy, and Nick are extremely careless. Nick’s carelessness detriments his reliability as a narrator. Because of Nick’s deep and familiar connection with Gatsby, Gatsby is “the exception” and Nick cannot be a reliable narrator towards him. Nick really admires and appreciates Gatsby as a friend, although it seems that Gatsby may not feel nth same way ads Nick. Gatsby may have befriended Nick solely because of his connection with Daisy. Nicks obsession with Gatsby and Gatsby’s obsession with
Thirdly, in F. Scott Fitzgerald's, Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway has to much faith in his neighbor, Jay Gatsby, which leads to consequences. In Nick's younger years, his father gave him advice that"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had"(Fitzgerald 1). With this in the back his mind, Nick, who is originally from Minnesota, moves into a small shack in Long Island that "was an eye-sore"(7) , next to the mysterious Jay Gatsby's mansion. Almost every Saturday, at the mansion is elaborate parties are going on but Jay Gatsby was never seen visible. One Saturday morning "a chauffeur in a uniform of robin's egg blue crossed (Nick's) lawn,[...] with a surprisingly formal not from his employed --- the honor would be entirely Gatsby's, if I would attend his 'little party' that night"(45).
“The Great Gatsby” is one of these stories with its amazing characters and its exaggeration. This book has a major drawback. Gatsby and Nick’s relationship was too close. Gatsby was so cautious that he fired all his servants, but he allowed Nick to stay with him to peek on Daisy and Tom and to make sure Daisy was not hurt. Nick accepted his request to stay outside. This is where Nick contradicts himself again, “I disliked him so much by this time that I didn’t find it necessary to tell him he was wrong.” (Fitzgerald,136). He disliked Gatsby but he still stayed to help. But why should Gatsby, such a cautious person, allow Nick to stay beside him? And why would Nick be willing to stay even if he dislikes Gatsby so much? This part of the story is illogical, and that is why I don’t like this
Nick is astonished at this information. He finds it hard to believe that Tom, with a beautiful wife and child, would be having an affair with some woman in the city. Miss Baker thinks “everybody knew” about the affair, yet Daisy is still with Tom. Being too ignorant to make herself believe it’s true, Daisy is willing to stay in the marriage, even when she is presented with an opportunity from Gatsby to escape. Daisy is willing to stay with Tom just because he has “old money,” and that shows how important it is to her. Everyone else’s morals are just as bad as Tom’s because they know about what’s going on and know that it’s wrong, but they don’t say anything about it. Later in the story, when Wilson is looking for the driver of the yellow car that killed Myrtle, he also suspects that person of having an affair with...
At the beginning of the book Nick sees Gatsby as a mysterious shady man. In the beginning of the chapter Nick somewhat resents Gatsby. In Nick’s opinion Gatsby was the representation of “…everything for which I have unaffected scorn.” (Fitzgerald 2). Nick sees Gatsby as what he hates the most in life, rich folk. Since the start of the novel it was obvious that had “Disapproved of him from beginning to end.” (Fitzgerald 154). As time passes, Nick realizes his neighbor has quite a mysterious past. Some think he’s a bootlegger, and a different person wa...